Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Hay Festival- Hay Fever 2015!

This year I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to illustrate this year's Hay Fever children's programme for the Hay Festival!
It was a really exciting project to be a part of and, as the festival begins this Thursday, I thought it was about time I shared some of the art I created for it.

We settled on the idea of a group of children who travel through worlds of the imagination (via book portals, of course!) before eventually arriving at their destination- Hay!

The character designs came together pretty quickly as I wanted to stick to the types of fantasy roles children might be familiar with, so we have a ranger, a warrior and a sorceress:

I thought it would be cool to have the young explorers discovering the first book-portal on the cover, as I love the idea of forgotten sacred tomes that hold lost secrets. First I did a very quick scribble in my sketchbook to get the basic idea down and once approved I did a loose colour version.

From here I worked up the finished cover, trying to keep the enchanted feel and air of mystery!

The interior spreads came together quite quickly, the team at Hay had some suggestions for worlds the kids could travel through and I came up with the rest.

The Hay Festival runs from the 21st to the 31st of May this year, click the links at the bottom of this post to find out more and book tickets! I'll be drawing at The Phoenix's stall on Tues 26th!

I must give thanks to Lisa Murphy and Andy Silver, who helped me out with the flat colours for these pages and both did a wonderful job!

Thanks also to Liz Payton, Tom Fickling and the team at the Phoenix and Jesse Ingham, Mary Byrne and the team at the Hay Festival for working with me on this and providing me the chance to illustrate the programme, It was a real joy!

Thanks also to my girlfriend Nikki Dyson, without whom I would have gone with an entirely different, much less fun concept- I owe you one!